


futile devices

by poseidon



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Missing Scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 08:55:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8791408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poseidon/pseuds/poseidon
Summary: Juno Steel is the kind of man who’d watch your back and not throw a knife in it. Too bad you couldn’t say the same about Peter Nureyev.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Currently un-beta'd

Peter Nureyev is many things, or so he’d have himself believe.

He’s a master thief, an anarchist, a charmer, a homme fatale, a mystery, an enigma. A man with no name.

He’s also a romantic.

* * *

The dossier on Juno Steel, he compiles himself. Miasma wouldn’t do it for him – of course she wouldn’t, what kind of criminal mastermind would she be if she actually did things herself and didn’t order someone else to do it instead – and her henchmen are much too… strange to ask for any help, so he does it himself.

It’s always easier to work alone, as he very well knows. (Though he doesn’t think he’d mind henchmen. At least, in the abstract.)

He has information on the Dark Matters operative Agent W, the lovely secretary Rita, and everyone else he’d be in contact with during his little mission but none of them quite catch his eye as Steel does. And it’s not just because he’s got a cute face.

Saying Juno Steel is interesting would be an understatement. A fallen from grace police officer isn’t a new story, and while his attitude seems to be the same as any other private investigator in a place like Hyperion City, his actions tell a different story – he doesn’t discriminate with his cases, taking on whatever client who’s desperate enough to have him. He sticks his nose into everyone’s business, from crime families to high-end dining establishments (which Peter will certainly have to visit during his trip) and beyond, doing whatever it takes to get the job done.

And he does get the job done, more often than not. He finds cheating husbands, runaway children, missing artifacts – whatever you’re looking for, he finds. And from what Peter can tell, he almost never turns anyone away.

_Juno Steel has a bleeding heart_ , Peter writes in one of the margins of the file. He stares at it for a few moments and then crosses out the word ‘Steel’.

“Juno,” he says quietly, then smiles. _Yes, this will do nicely_.

* * *

The thing about a good disguise, Peter learned quickly, is that it has to be the right amount of similar and dissimilar from your original self. Similar enough that you don’t forget who you are supposed to be and dissimilar enough that you wouldn’t slip up and reveal something you weren’t supposed to.

Rex Glass isn’t supposed to be very different from Peter – a little eccentric, a little flighty, but professional nonetheless. He’d flirt (of course he’d flirt) but he’d keep his distance, get the mask, and get out of there before anyone’s the wiser.

But then he gets to the Steel Detective Agency and – well, he’s never been very good at self-restraint, has he? He doesn’t mean to ignore Rita when she asks him what his business is, not when he’s supposed to be on everyone’s good side, but he brushes past her and opens the door to the main office.

Juno Steel looks at him and, for a moment, Peter forgets how to breathe.

“Hello there,” Peter smiles, and it’s a credit to how amazing an actor he is that his voice sounds so unaffected.

Steel – or, rather, _Juno_ – gives him a hard look. “Agent Glass,” he replies, in that rough, gruff voice Peter had, until just recently, heard only in old recordings. It sounded so much lovelier in person.

_This is going to be much more fun than anticipated_.

* * *

Juno’s excessive empathy comes into play early on in their investigation, in the form of Cassandra Kanagawa.

A locked door isn’t enough to keep someone like Peter out of the action, and he listens in on their entire conversation. It really does nothing more than to prove his assumptions about Juno, really – he gives Cassandra the harsh truth, tells her there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, and then, in the same breath, promises to help her escape.

“How did you get in with the Kanagawas?” he asks, just out of plain curiosity.

“It’s a long story,” Juno replies after a moment’s consideration.

“And is it an extremely short ride to the restaurant?”

Juno rolls his eyes. “No, I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“So you decided to lie instead, hm?” Peter leans back in his seat and looks at him, watches the way the lights from the outside shine on his eyes and make them glow. “Come on, Juno, throw me a little bone here. Or are we to just sit here in silence together?”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Juno says. He pauses a moment. “They’re not all terrible people. Sure, they’re a crime family who sell their own flesh and blood for entertainment but not all of them. Cassandra, for example – all she wants is to get out of this life and be free. She’s nothing like her family.”

“Isn’t she the one who threatened you with that gun?” Peter asks.

“Well – yes.”

Peter laughs, more bemused than anything. “For all your pessimistic talk, you do seem to have an optimistic view of people. Seems pretty dangerous in your line of work.”

“Maybe,” Juno shrugs, “but I guess after all the bad, you’d cling on to any little good you see.”

“I suppose you would.” Peter leans his head back and stares out the window.

Juno Steel is the kind of man who’d watch your back and not throw a knife in it. Too bad you couldn’t say the same about Peter Nureyev.

* * *

"You weren't wrong when you said you'd be an expensive date," Juno says, while they're sitting in the waiting room of the hospital.

Peter raises a brow. "I thought our meal would be free on account of the terrible service we received."

Juno lets out a quiet chuckle and shifts his arm gingerly. "That might be true," he hums, "but this hospital bill isn't going to be cheap."

"True," Peter hums. "Don't worry about the bill, Juno. I'll just put it on the company card and write it off as a work-related expense."

"If that's your way of wining and dining me, I can't say it isn't working." 

Juno gives him that sly, subtle smile - the kind you see in those cheesy movies that come on at night when there's nothing else on and you've got nothing better to do - and Peter realizes that he’s going to be found out. That Juno is going to somehow put all the pieces together and learn the truth.

It’s something in his eyes, Peter thinks, something in the way they look at him. A little fond, a little wary, and a little – vulnerable. As though he’s putting his life in the hands of someone he thinks he shouldn’t trust.

When they kiss, later, once the investigation is (almost) over, Peter hesitates when he takes the key to the safe out of Juno’s pocket. He would’ve preferred not to have done this. If Juno would just come along with him – but of course he won’t.

Infatuation will only let you stray so far.

* * *

Peter leaves Miasma’s employ when he finds out the truth of her intentions. Well, ‘leave’ may be the wrong term – ‘escape’ is more accurate. After all, why would she let him leave when he did take her files and discover the evil doomsday device she intends to have him steal?

He gets a ticket for a ship headed out of Hyperion City and when he gets to – well, wherever it is he’s going – he’ll call up whoever he can and try to sell this information. Hopefully someone will have the guts to face off against her and this whole matter will be settled.

That may be a painfully naïve way of looking at things, but what else is he supposed to do? He’s a charmer, not a fighter.

He’s walking to the space port, past a dazzling array of holographic screens, when he sees her – Cassandra Kanagawa, in her prison cell, during her specified block of programming. She looks different from when he last saw her – much more resigned, much more depressed.

A woman comes to stand beside him and shakes her head with a sigh. Something must’ve shown on his face because she turns to him and says, “Can you believe that they’re going to try and extend her sentence? All for one television show?”

_Juno_ _would be devastated_ , he thinks, and then lets out a slow sigh. “I’ve been to many different cities on many different planets, but none of them have been quite like Hyperion City.”

“I’ve never been outside of this place,” the woman says. “Born and raised here. But I always imagined anywhere else would be better than here.”

“Imagine no longer.” Peter pulls his ticket out of his pocket and hands it to her. “Ship’s that way. Don’t dawdle – they’re very punctual.” He turns around and starts walking away, ignoring whatever she’s shouting.

God, is he a romantic. Some things never change, do they?

* * *

His plan is simple, but everything hinges on precise timing and a certain set of circumstances and _that_ is something that could make or break even the most foolproof of schemes.

No one he knows could get to Mars fast enough, so he sends out a message to the Martian underground about the heist of the century. He gets plenty of replies from many well-qualified individuals, but the thing about anyone with a criminal background – you can’t trust them. Not with anything.

Just look at what he did with Juno.

He looks him up, of course – listens in on conversations, scans articles, even sets up a news alert. It seems as though he’s realized that there’s something more to this whole Martian artifact thing than meets the eye.

“My, my, Juno,” Peter mumbles, scrolling through an article about some explosive debacle in Old Town, “you’ve been a very busy detective.”

The deadline for the heist is quickly approaching and he’s no closer to finding his partner in crime when, all of a sudden, there’s a message on his answering machine about a certain private eye looking for some Martian artifacts.

Well, there’s no one Peter would trust more to have his back than Juno Steel.

* * *

Juno is just as breathtaking in person as he was back when they’d first met, and Peter feels like he’s fallen head over heels all over again for this grumpy, sentimental detective.

“It’s so good to see you again, Juno,” he says with a pleasant smile.

“Can it, Nureyev,” Juno snaps in response, but it doesn’t deter Peter in the slightest. After all, if Juno _really_ didn’t want to see him again, he wouldn’t have shown up. But here they were, together once again.

But old resentments die hard, don’t they, and it hurts so much when he learns Juno doesn’t trust him.

_But I gave you my name_ , he thinks. _I gave you my name and I wanted you by my side for this and I trusted that you wouldn’t let me down._

_Trust doesn’t go two ways,_ he thinks Juno would say, and he’s right. Trust should be earned, and what has Peter done yet to earn that trust from Juno, after what he did that day?

Peter is still awake when Juno comes back into their room, after doing whatever it was he’d been doing. He climbs into bed beside him, keeping his distance, and says, in a soft whisper, “I’m sorry.”

Peter was pretending to be asleep, but he turns his head and looks in the general direction of his voice, at the outline of his face in the dim light from the windows.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you like that,” Juno continues. He must think Peter is still sleeping, and Peter does his best to maintain that illusion, listening quietly.

“I have every reason to be suspicious of you, to be wary of you, but well… I guess it’s not really you who I’m angry at. It’s me – I’m angry that I fell for your pretty smile and your soft voice and everything else and I knew you were going to betray me but I let you because… well, I don’t know why. I’ve associated myself with murderers, thieves, all sorts of criminals and yet… I’m so angry with you.”

Juno starts to more and Peter quickly closes his eyes, slows down his breathing, keeps still. When Juno speaks again, Peter can feel his breath on his skin. His voice is so quiet.

“I’m going to give you a chance, Nureyev. Don’t… don’t mess this one up.”

There’s some more shuffling and then all Peter can hear is the sounds of sleep coming from Juno and the heavy thudding of his own heart, threatening to burst in his chest.

* * *

They built up their trust at a good time, Peter thinks, because now the only people they can trust is each other.

He doesn’t sleep anymore. Neither does Juno, technically – the only time he rests is when he passes out from whatever torment Miasma put him through that day. Neither of them know how many days it’s been since their capture. And what good would it do to know? No one would know where they are, no one would know where to look.

“That’s if someone _is_ looking for us,” Juno mumbles quietly when Peter opens up to him, during one of those rare occasions when he’s conscious and not being tortured. He’s lying down in the bed, flat on his back and staring straight above, and all Peter can look at is the crusted blood streaked on his face.

“I’m positive someone is looking for you,” he says. “Sasha Wire, Rita, Mick Mercury – hell, even the Kanagawas and Valles Vicky. Do you really think these people wouldn’t take notice that you’ve been missing for – days, at least?”

“I don’t know,” Juno says quietly. “Maybe. I mean, I’m not a very good friend to my friends. Maybe they’d prefer me gone.”

“I highly doubt that.”

Juno shifts his head and turns to look at him, expression unreadable. “You barely know me.”

Peter leans forward and gives him the slightest of smiles. “I know you well enough to know that even with your flaws, there’s enough good in you that draws people into your orbit and keeps them there.”

“Nice space reference,” Juno says with a chuckle. “Thank you.” He gives Peter his signature look – that sweet smile of his – and it looks so beautiful. He turns his head back to the ceiling. “Do you think anyone’s looking for you?”

Peter thinks of Brahma, of Mags, and says, “I don’t know.”

* * *

It’s when Peter is banging against the door and watching what he thinks are the final moments in Juno Steel’s life that he realizes he’s in love.

* * *

They drive back to Hyperion City, Peter in the driver’s seat and Juno sitting right beside him, head resting against the window and hand on Peter’s thigh.

Peter spares a quick glance at Juno – his Juno, alive and well – and smiles. “You have a bleeding heart, Juno.”

“Do I?” Juno replies with a lazy smile.

Peter laughs. “Oh yes. You’d help any sorry sap who came your way – and that’s the basis of your business. In fact, even while we were trapped and you were going through unimaginable pain, you pushed yourself to the breaking point just so I wouldn’t be hurt.”

Juno rolls his eyes fondly and shifts in his seat. “All right, I see your point. And what of it – you gonna tell me I should harden myself up before we set out among the stars?”

“No, actually,” Peter says, still smiling. “I was going to tell you that it’s what I love about you. You care so deeply and you let yourself get hurt and…”

He trails off and feels Juno squeeze his leg gently. Peter takes a deep breath. “And there’s no one else I’d rather have by my side.”

“I feel the same way,” Juno says, as he pulls one of Peter’s hands over and kisses his palm.

_Yes_ , Peter thinks, _yes, I could get used to this._

* * *

In hindsight, Peter should’ve seen it coming. Love, like trust, doesn’t go both ways and infatuation isn’t enough to take you out to the stars.

He wakes up alone in bed, feeling the cold, empty space beside him, and wonders how he’d let himself be fooled by a pretty smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Futile Devices by Sufjan Stevens.
> 
> Binged the whole podcast in one day and then wrote this immediately after. If you're also in this podcast hell, hit me up on my [tumblr](http://www.poeorgana.tumblr.com)


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